The Aquarium's Dr John Ford spoke to a house packed with adoring, uncritical aquarium members and board members, who hung on his every word as he described how for days he lay on the ice, fooling whales with friendly allurements, and then caught some of them to be made captives.

Of course the justification for this betrayal of trusting beings was science. Ford was treated like a superior being and roundly applauded.

Peter Hamilton spoke against all the immorality and the falsity of the "science" and was treated to rude mutterings and some ignorant boos by the monied sycophants.

I'll never ever forget my horror at the self-satisfied smugness of all of them, and their lack of compassion for animals.